Calling a Foul An examination of American sports journalists’ interactions with whistleblowers

DOI: 10.5176/2301-3710_JMComm15.58

Authors: Sada Reed

Abstract: News stories exposing American athletic scandals often begin with a “whistleblower” contacting a sports journalist. A whistleblower is a source whose position or access to information makes him or her privy to scandal or wrongdoing. The following study adopted Near and Miceli’s 1995 model of effective whistleblowing and Near, Rehg, Van Scotter, and Miceli’s 2004 seven categories of wrongdoing in order to examine American sports journalists’ interactions with whistleblowers. Results of a binary logistic regression suggest sports journalists’ length of time at a newspaper significantly predicts whether or not they interacted with whistleblowers. Sports journalists’ sex, race, and newspapers’ market size, however, were not statistically significant predictors of interactions.